Ding Dong, Dinner! How to invite a cooking elf into your home

SAN ANTONIO - With a brand new online dinner service right here in San Antonio you can have a chef come to your home and cook your dinner in your kitchen. It's called Dinner Elf.

Chef Nelson Pierce is a Dinner Elf. We talked to him as he was whipping up some chicken pot pies and mashed potatoes for dinner.

Right before arriving, he went grocery shopping and bought all the ingredients -- so all this stuff is fresh.

"You get in and you have three or four dishes you can leave in the fridge, ready to go," said Pierce. "And it usually takes about two hours."

For $120, a chef will come to your house and prepare three meals for the week.

"They cook, kind of meal-prep style, all of the three meals," said Nicole Vickey, co-owner of Dinner Elf. "And they put them in our containers, which are nice and stackable, And put them all in a fridge for you to come home and pop them in the microwave or oven. And it's on the table in ten minutes -- and they clean up."

It's great for working parents. Vickey started Dinner Elf in Austin three years ago with only three chefs -- she has 14 now.

"It's been an enormous success among working families... and their weeknights are just crazy."

She says all of the chefs are heavily vetted for quality and safety.

"A growing team of background-checked, professionally-trained chefs are now serving most of Central and North San Antonio up to Beorne," she said.

One of the best parts: they clean up, too.

"It's rewarding for me to go over there and help them out," Pierce said. "Not only cook meals -- but also leave a spotless kitchen."